Die Hard

New York cop John McClane flies to LA for Christmas to reconcile with his estranged wife at her company’s Christmas party. When sophisticated European thieves take over the building John becomes the only person standing between the hostages and disaster — armed with nothing but a pistol his bare feet and his New York sarcasm. John McTiernan’s film redefined the action genre and invented the template for dozens of successors. Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber is perhaps cinema’s most perfectly calibrated charming villain.